


If I Should Die Before I Wake

by Vav



Category: Barry (TV 2018)
Genre: Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:15:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21652102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vav/pseuds/Vav
Summary: Hank has a nightmare. Barry knows the feeling.
Relationships: Barry Berkman/NoHo Hank
Comments: 7
Kudos: 138





	If I Should Die Before I Wake

**Author's Note:**

> Here's a little something I wrote to deal with my never-ending thoughts of the plague Batir must be on Hank's life. I hope you enjoy it!

He can smell Korengal when he hears the whimpers, the wheezing. It’s dry and arid and he can almost taste their MRE food rations. Whimpers, wheezes, a broken sob and a forced exhale. Probably one of the newer additions to the squad. It’s not easy out here by any means. Barry knows this.

The whimpering grows louder, and Barry can’t seem to place the sound. There are no other soldiers around. It’s just him in the town square. It’s desolate. It’s quiet. Except for the wheezing, except for another broken sob. Barry scratches the side of his head – why is there hair there? Where’s his buzz cut? Where’s his combat gear? He’s exposed. Over the faint crying he’s trying to place, a high-pitched wail begins to sound, and –

Barry jolts up and immediately winces as his hip cracks. This isn’t his cot. This isn’t even the sand bunker. This is an Ikea mattress covered in sheets from Bed Bath and Beyond. And that’s not a wheezing platoon member. That’s Hank, sitting up in bed, clutching his chest with one hand and squeezing the life out of his blankets with the other. Did he get shot? Did he get fucking shot in the dead of night? Barry knows he sleeps through a lot, but gunfire? Never gunfire.

“Hank,” Barry’s voice comes out thick yet urgent, Hank’s name aborted in his throat. He was _deeply_ asleep, body still feeling totally disoriented from the instantaneous travel from Korengal to – where is this? – the stash house. “Hank, shit. Are you hurt?” Barry turns toward him and grabs the hand off of Hank’s chest, ready to apply appropriate pressure to any wound he finds there.

There’s no wound. Just sweat. Palpitations. Hank’s coming down from the hyperventilation, breath still coming rapidly and chest heaving in tow. He stares straight ahead, and by the yellow glow of the outdoor lights of the stash house, Barry can see the tears splotched on his cheeks and dripping off of his nose.

“Hank,” Barry tries again. “What ha-”

“He made me g-go back,” Hank stammers, hands moving beside his own hips to grab and scratch at the sheets, fingers shaking all the while. Barry’s in his space, sitting cross-legged beside him but still facing him, and presses two fingers to the pulse point under Hank’s jaw. “He made me go back.” Rapid pulse. Barry rests his other hand on Hank’s wrist, not sure what sort of contact to offer him.

“Go back where?” Barry asks, but he knows the answer.

“I don’t want to go back,” Hank sobs in his quietest voice possible and twists his body to fall forward into Barry. Barry immediately feels wetness soaking into his t-shirt, and all he can do is hold Hank. “I don’t want to go back. I don’t want to go back, Barry, I don’t want to go back.” His words come out through strained sobs and Barry fully heaves Hank into his lap. Hank’s legs wrap around Barry’s waist, arms circling his neck so impossibly tight.

“You’re not going anywhere,” Barry soothes him with a flat, firm voice, one hand caressing Hank’s sweaty, shirtless back. Hank shudders into his neck and continues to breathe loudly as an attempt to catch his breath. “Hey. You hear me? You’re not going anywhere.”

“I don’t want to go back,” Hank repeats, and his broken tone has Barry’s brow furrowed in unwavering concern. “I can’t go back! I – they – Barry, you were there, and they-” Hank’s breathing begins to even, but his tears are hot and wet as they slide down Barry’s neck and keep soaking into his shirt. “I don’t want to go there. He made me go there.”

It started out as a joke, Chechnya. Hank would show Barry pictures from his teenage years, dark hair on his head and outfits somehow even worse than the ones he sports now. He’d joke about what he and his friends would get up to when the nation wasn’t at war. Spoke in a bemused tone when he’d talk about the friends and family members – actual family, none of the Pazar shit – and one boyfriend that went missing before he left. Hank would always scoff and call it a shithole, but nothing more.

The first time Batir threatened to send him back, Hank told Barry about it with a laugh, but didn’t take even one sip of the smoothie that Barry had brought for him. The second time, Hank sent him an emoji-laden text about it, but when Barry showed up to the stash house, Hank was in his car, staring blankly into space for a solid ten minutes before emerging.

Barry wonders if it happened again. If Hank fielded a call from Batir before Barry arrived with Thai food from a place near his own apartment and climbed up the fire escape to Hank’s window. If he had, he certainly didn’t show it while they ate, while they shared headphones to watch a movie, while they kissed until they fell asleep. But Barry knows how it goes. Sometimes you just swallow it down then deal with the cold sweats in the dead of night.

“I dreamt about my place, too,” Barry whispers, rubs his hands over Hank’s shoulder blades. Hank draws in the most coherent inhale yet, but shakily exhales his breath. “I know.” A kiss to Hank’s temple. “No one can make either of us go back. You’re staying here with me.”

“Barry, he sounded so serious, I don’t –”

Barry trails his fingertips down Hank’s back, making the other man shiver. They both know how Barry gets. Possessive. Protective. He’d do anything for Hank. He owes it to Hank. And he owes it to his own feelings. Intense desire, unprecedented love, and fervent respect. Hank’s defeated sighs don’t make Barry sad. They make Barry angry. He lowers his voice and speaks calmly, confidently into Hank’s ear.

“You’re staying here with me.”


End file.
